This type of wrist watch is known from the state of the art under the designation of container watch. The French patent document FR 2 204 828 describes such a watch which is characterized in that it includes three elements, namely, the watch itself fashioned from a standard watchcase enclosing a movement and adapted to be mass produced, an intermediate decorative support element to which the watch may be fixed, and a bracelet attached to the intermediate support. The purpose of the cited invention is to associate the watch itself with an interchangeable support, for instance conservatively decorated to be worn during the day, or with more elaborate and refined decorations for evening wear. Although not mentioned in the description, the idea of a container watch is also of interest for after-sales service. Effectively, repairs to be effected to the watch itself may be brought about simply by proceeding with a standard exchange of the latter and this without loss of time for the client, the case and its defective movement being sent back to the factory for repairs and subsequently used in another support.
A wrist-watch of this type has been commercialized under the registered trademark "Dynamic". To a support in the form of a ring are fastened the two strands of a bracelet. The watchcase which bears a flange is introduced into the ring and then is fixed thereto by means of a nut screwed into a groove provided about the case. Here the support is very simple and may be manufactured from a strip having a rectangular cross-section. Therein there are no particular decorative aspects. It may also be noted that the support requires costly retouch operations, the latter being necessary if for no other reason than to form the attachment lugs for attaching the bracelet.
It has also been proposed to mass produce a caseband for a watchcase on the basis of a contour extruded in the form of a tube. The British patent document GB-A-887 130 shows such an arrangement wherein, after having attached lugs by welding them along the tube, the latter is cut into slices in order to obtain the desired caseband. This system is relatively expensive to put into practice and above all does not permit obtaining directly from the contour a profile in relief elongated in the sense in which the profile is drawn since the profile shown in the cited document is a tube and not a strip as in the present invention.
French patent document FR-A-2 329 002 describes a watchcase including a bezel made from folded sheet metal including two attachment ridges thanks to which there may be assembled a watch crystal and a back cover-container. However here there is found no profile in relief which could be obtained from a contoured strip as is the case in the present invention.